China's launch site for launch of polar orbiting satellites, also known as Wuzhai. Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (TSLC) is situated in Kelan County, the northwest part of Shanxi Province, 280 km by road from Taiyuan City.

The head office of the launch center is located in Taiyuan City. TSLC has two feeder railway that connect with Ningwu-Kelan railway, which crosses the launch center and joins Northern Tongtu railway at Ningpu County. Highways lead to all TSLC sites. Taiyuan Airport is 300 km by road from the launch site and can accept jumbo aircraft. TSLC is primarily used to launch meteorological satellites, earth resource satellites and scientific satellites. It consists of the Technical Center, the Mission Command and Control Center. Telemetry, Tracking, and Communications Systems, and necessary technical and logistic support systems. TSLC is located in a temperate zone, with an elevation of 1,400km to 1,900km above sea level. It is cool in summer. Aside from the space launches, the facility is also used for missile tests. Several valleys leading north and south from the rail line shelter a number of IRBM/ICBM launch pads.

Taiyuan was known to have been used for 46 launches from 1985 to 2007.

LM 700 American communications satellite. 98 launches, 1997.05.05 (Iridium 8) to 2002.06.20 (Iridium SV98 ). The LM 700 had its first use in the Iridium system, a commercial communications network comprised of a minimum of 66 LEO spacecraft. More...

CZ China's first ICBM, the DF-5, first flew in 1971. It was a two-stage storable-propellant rocket in the same class as the American Titan, the Russian R-36, or the European Ariane. The DF-5 spawned a long series of Long March ("Chang Zheng") CZ-2, CZ-3, and CZ-4 launch vehicles. These used cryogenic engines for upper stages and liquid-propellant strap-on motors to create a family of 12 Long-March rocket configurations capable of placing up to 9,200 kg into orbit. In 2000 China began development of a new generation of expendable launch vehicles using non-toxic, high-performance propellants with supposedly lower operating costs. However these encountered development delays, and it seemed the reliable Long March series of rockets would continue in operational use for nearly fifty years before being replaced. More...

CZ-1 China began development of the CZ-1 (Changzheng-1 = Long March-1) launch vehicle in the second half of 1965. The project was undertaken with the specific objective of launching China's first satellite, the DFH-1. The CZ-l's first and second stages were adapted from those of the DF-3 intermediate range ballistic missile. The third stage used a new-design solid rocket motor. More...

DF-31 Version of JL-2. Mobile, solid propellant, land-based, medium range, three-stage ballistic missile. Basis for the KT-1 light orbital launch vehicle. The missile was tested on the ground in 1995. Ejection tests from the transport-launch tube began in 1998. The first flight test took place on 1 August 1999. Deployment was not expected until 2005-2010. More...

KT Family of all solid-propellant Chinese launch vehicles, using the DF-31 ICBM as the basis with new upper or lower stages to achieve a range of payload performances. Following two unsuccessful launches in 2002-2003, the project may have been abandoned. More...

CZ-2C Chinese orbital launch vehicle. The CZ-2C was the definitive low earth orbit launch vehicle derived from DF-5 ICBM. It became the basis for an entire family of subsequent Long March vehicles. Many adaptive modifications were made to the configuration of the CZ-2A to handle a variety of new satellites and upper stages. The CZ-2C had improved technical performance and payload capacity compared to the CZ-2A, with later versions having a payload capability of 2,800 kg into a 200 km circular orbit. More...

CZ-4A Chinese orbital launch vehicle. The CZ-4 was developed and manufactured by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology. Its first stage was essentially the same as that of the CZ-3 and the second stage was identical to that of the CZ-3. The CZ-4's third stage, however, was a development, featuring a thin wall common intertank bulkhead tankage and two-engine cluster with both engines gimbling about two perpendicular axes. The third stage engine cluster connected to the tank aft bulkhead through the engine bay. The CZ-4 had two payload fairing configurations: Type-A and Type-B. The CZ-4 was designed for launching satellites into polar and sun-synchronous orbits. More...

CZ-1D Chinese orbital launch vehicle. Proposed launch vehicle derived from the CZ-1, but with a new N2O4/UDMH second stage. Used for a suborbital re-entry vehicle test but never flown on an orbital mission. More...

CZ-2C/SD On April 28, 1993, the Chinese Great Wall Industrial Corporation and Motorola signed a launch services contract for multiple launch of Iridium communications satellites using CZ-2C/SD launch vehicles. The main differences between the CZ-2C and the CZ-2C/SD were: a modified fairing with a diameter of 3.35m; a newly developed Smart Dispenser; improved second stage fuel and oxidizer tanks; and second stage engines with higher expansion ratio nozzles. More...

CZ-4B Chinese orbital launch vehicle. The CZ-4B introduced in 1999 was an improved model of the CZ-4B with an enhanced third stage and fairing. It measured 44.1 metres in length with a first stage thrust of 300 tonnes. More...

KT-1 Chinese all-solid orbital launch vehicle. China's first solid propellant orbital launch vehicle was derived from the first and second stages of the DF-31 ICBM with a new solid third stage. The vehicle was named Kaituozhe-1 (Explorer-1) and was capable of putting 100 kg into polar orbits. More...

CZ-4C Chinese orbital launch vehicle. The CZ-4C, first flown in 2007, had an upgraded second-stage engine that could be restarted in space. The vehicle also had structural rings at the base of the first and second stages, an interstage weather cover,ejected at liftoff, and the larger payload shroud introduced on the CZ-4B. All of these indicated that the vehicle was designed to take larger payloads to higher, more precise orbits than the CZ-4B. More...

Associated Programs

Iridium The Iridium system is a commercial communications network comprised of a constellation of 66 LEO spacecraft. The system uses L-Band to provide global communications services through portable handsets. More...

ZY-1 - .
Payload: Zi Yuan 1. Mass: 1,540 kg (3,390 lb). Nation: China. Agency: SISE. Manufacturer: CAST; INP. Class: Earth. Type: Earth resources satellite. Spacecraft: ZY. USAF Sat Cat: 25940 . COSPAR: 1999-057A. Apogee: 780 km (480 mi). Perigee: 773 km (480 mi). Inclination: 98.2000 deg. Period: 100.40 min. China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite. China's first earth resources satellite, known as ZY-1, weighed 1,540 kilograms. Chief designer was Chen Yiyuan. The satellite, a joint project of China and Brazil, was designed to gather information on the environment, agriculture and urban planning through remote sensing images and data transmitted to China, Brazil and other countries. Planned lifetime was two years. The satellite circled the Earth 14 times a day and the groundtrack repeated after 26 days. By 23 February 2000 it had taken more than 20,000 high quality images. It was formally handed over for operational use on March 2 2000. The High Resolution CCD Camera had a resolution of 20 meters in the visible spectrum. The camera could point up to 32 degrees to either side of vertical, imaging the earth's surface stereoscopically. After 177 days the Wide Field Imager failed in early May 2000. Other devices, including the high resolution CCD camera, continue to work normally.

ZY-2 - .
Payload: Zi Yuan 2. Nation: China. Agency: SISE. Manufacturer: CAST. Class: Surveillance. Type: Military surveillance satellite. Spacecraft: ZY. USAF Sat Cat: 26481 . COSPAR: 2000-050A. Apogee: 501 km (311 mi). Perigee: 489 km (303 mi). Inclination: 97.4000 deg. Period: 94.43 min. The ZY-2 (Ziyuan-2 ('Resource-2'), while disguised as a civilian earth monitoring system, was actually code-named Jianbing-3 and was China's first high-resolution military imaging satellite. The cover story of the official Xinhua news agency was that the civilian remote sensing system would be used primarily in territorial surveying, city planning, crop yield assessment, disaster monitoring and space science experimentation. However the satellite was placed at a much lower altitude than the ZY-1 satellite and US intelligence sources indicated that it was a photo-reconnaissance satellite for exclusively military purposes, such as targeting missiles at US and Taiwanese forces. The new satellite was believed to employ digital-imaging technology and to have a resolution of 2 m or less. The satellite was designed and built by the Chinese Academy of Space Technology and was developed indigenously. It was said to be more advanced than earlier sensing satellites and was expected to have an orbital life of two years. The camera provided more than three times the resolution of the ZY-1 earth resources satellite. The Zi Yuan 2 satellite may have used the CBERS Sino-Brazilian bus of the earlier ZY-1. However it was also said to be of new design and demonstrated the capability to maneuver in orbit, adjusting its orbit after launch. In October 2000 Chinese scientists denied that the ZY-2 satellite had a military mission. It was said to be a remote-sensing satellite equipped with CCD cameras and an infrared multispectral scanner that could only identify objects on the ground with a resolution of several dozen meters to 1 km.

SJ-6A - .
Payload: Shi Jian 6B. Nation: China. Agency: SISE. Class: Technology. Type: Navigation technology satellite. Spacecraft: SJ-6. USAF Sat Cat: 28413 . COSPAR: 2004-035A. Apogee: 593 km (368 mi). Perigee: 578 km (359 mi). Inclination: 97.7000 deg. Period: 96.40 min. It was announced that the two satellites had a design life of at least two years, and would be used to probe the space environment, radiation and its effects, record space physical environment parameters, and conduct other related space experiments. The two satellites were built by the Shanghai Academy of Space Flight Technology and Dongfanghong Satellite Company under subcontract to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. The scientific instruments aboard the satellites were mainly manufactured by the China Electronics Technology Corporation. Some Western observors believed the mission of the satellites included electronic intelligence technology tests.